SENIORS: GOOD IDEAS MAKE FOR GOOD DAYS

You ARE Your Thoughts!

Provocative and stimulating thoughts contribute to good ideas which make for good days. Therefore, the more good ideas we have, the better our days. Putting oneself in an environment and position to have good ideas is the first requirement for creating the climate necessary for good days. That also means avoiding those climates that are depressive, downers, and destructive. The nature of our good days contributes to defeating the bad ones, when we take seriously heading off that which is negative.

Waking up every morning to the prospect of a good day as opposed to a bad one is ours to accept. To be sure it can come with its discouragements and detours. But, intentionally getting up, getting going is ours to have. William James tells a story about awaking and struggling with getting up. He says that we find all kinds of excuses to stay snuggled in our warm bed…until, at last, some motivating thought occurs and suddenly we have leapt from the bed with a “hollo” and the day is ours.

Say YES To Life!

Doing so makes for worthwhile experiences, hidden opportunities, amazing undertakings. None of us can know what our days can be like until we have jumped to the invitation for being and doing they offer. When we awaken to what awaits and are prepared to recieve it, we are saying “yes” to life. Saying no by our choices and decisions means that we are cutting off the chance to have a full and complete life.

If we remain curious, wondering about life, intrigued by new adventures our lives can be more fulfilling and complete. Settling in to an indifference to what makes up living, even if our environment is difficult to challenge, will shorten our interest span, minimize our energy, discourage pleasure and satisfaction.

Persons who reside in care facilities are tempted to become apathetic. There is so much in nursing care facilities that lends itself to despair, the persons who are unable to even feed themselves, the routines for activity that the resident chooses to find unappealing, the quick entry and hasty exit of some residents, whose next stop may be the hospital or mortuary. In such cases the need, albeit the demand, for more determination, more inisistence to be active and alert comes to the fore. Having a good idea each morning is a good way to stem the tide of apathy. Acting on that good idea is a means for staying in charge of your own life longer.

There are no simple formulae for productive aging. Although this may sound like one, having good ideas everyday, keeping your mind and body alert and willing is primary and necessary. Getting lazy and giving in to it, because we don’t feel like it, will win every time. It will win because our minds and bodies are meant, where possible, to be used. Abusing them does not come so much by activity as inactivity. Having a means for keeping your brain waves active will inspire your memory and your thoughts to good ideas for everyday involvement.

If there are persons in your care and keeping who have moved into a “facility” of one kind or another, because of limiting physical conditions, it behooves you to use your imagination to come up with daily “good” ideas to help stimulate and keep as active as possible your loved one. They may be so discouraged as not to be motivated to do it for themselves. While it may be challenging, often distressing, to try to contribute to a more active mental and physical lifestyle, you and they will be better off for the efforts and good intentions.

For both care taker and receiver, our advice is to remember that “good ideas make for good days.”